Infra-red emission has been used for the detection of plants reacting against pest. In fact the futuristic approach is the use of drones equipped with special camera that can detect either infrared or ultraviolet light combined with GPS to detect and map areas of fields infected with diseases or pests. Such a mapping enables a precise targeting of the treatments.
I fully agree with, we started from the beginning of this year, 2020, to enhance this type of projects and apply more advanced image processing tools to detect the infected palm trees.